I do love the Norwegians, and the west fjords of Norway a lot. I guess that's why I had come back for this my second visit here at Preikestolen and Lysefjorden

The original plan was to visit the Southwest shores and fjords of Norway again together with my daughter and her boyfriend in her very cool Volkswagen LT35, now a retired ambulance turned into a campervan, and also my son. I was very eager to revisit Preikestolen at Lysefjorden and to show my kids this very beautiful place, and also to experience Lysebotn, which I missed last time I was here back in 2012.

Unfortunately my lovely daughter suffers from a very serious decease that sometimes tries to destroy some of her inner guts, and this time she had to go into hospital and have several repeated drop with corticosteroids. I had a hard time taking of on my own, but I decided that no one really would benefit if I stayed at home with her and my son; and I would be a maximum of 24 hours drive away from her. And so I drove away from my hometown Friday evening just after dinner. I had tickets to the ferry from Hirtshals to Kristiansand Saturday evening a eight o’clock; but I was eager to get started.

I reached the bridge crossing Lillebælt sometime around eight o’clock in the evening and took my Geländewagen down under the bridge at the waterfront to watch the sunset. I located a nice spot and parked the truck to enjoy my dinner meal. After a little while I decided to sleep here for the night, and drove around a bit to find a suitable spot to park overnight.

The following day I had some very nice weather and took it slowly on my way up though Jutland toward my scheduled ferry ride to Norway taking detours to Vejle fjord and several spots and villages on the west-coat. I made it in good time in a annoying rainfall to the port in Hirsthals.

When the ferry reached Kristiansand it was midnight and very dark, a few scattered raindrops dotted on my windshield. The fatigue occurred not long after leaving the city-center, but I had to endure some two hours behind the steering wheel before I was able to locate a suitable spot to park for the night, it was pitch black and silent all around me, and I was a tired but happy dude on another adventure.

I arrived late in the afternoon at the parking-lot where the walking path to Preikestolen takes off, my Junkers wristwatch showed that the time was a little after four o-clock. I did a quick calculation based on the estimated time on the trail to reach the cliff, and the present height of the sun over the horizon, concluding that I would be able to make it in good time to my destination at Preikestolen, and still have some descent low-light to make some nice photographs with.

On the trail I saw only a few people, a few foreign tourist like myself, and some local Norwegians. And when hiking on I realized, what to me seems very odd, that the foreigners were reluctant to greet you with more than a quick "hello". But the local Norwegians kindly greeted you with a big bright smile spanning all across their kind faces, cheek to cheek. I do love the Norwegians, and the west fjords of Norway a lot. I guess that’s why I had come back for this my second visit here at Preikestolen and Lysefjorden. My first visit was in late August 2012, it was a lovely sunny summers day. But the trail in that season of the year sees quite a big number of tourist heading for this widely know attraction. This time, in mid April, the cliff itself and the trail was nearly desolated and I had a very quiet time, - just the way I love it. The snow-covered mountains-tops made it all just that more beautiful and spectacular.

When I arrived at Preikestolen late in the afternoon, I was alone there except from two Norwegian teenage girls. This was their first visit here, just a three hour drive away from their home on the west coast north of Stavanger. After a short while they took off and I had the fortune to enjoy the plateau entirely on my own. A rare experience taken into account that normally this is a busy place since at least 150.000 tourists visit the cliff during the four summer month.

The signs at the parking-lot claimed that the hike up onto Preikestolen would take a estimated two hours each way, I easily made it in just around one hour and fifteen minutes one way. So I took my time to enjoy the views from the plateau and take a few pictures of the scenery and still made it back to the parking-lot in good time before sunset.

Although spring had arrived early in Scandinavia this year the nights were still very cold in Norway. The second night I slept at a river and very unexpected there was a snowfall during the night, some 5 cm. and pure white. When I did my overnight at Predikestolen in the parking-lot I had to remove ice from the inside of the windshield before I could head onto the road. So I appreciated my thick and warm Haglöfs sleeping-bag a lot during nights.